SMF 9/30/12 Bluetooth keyboard

Hi,

This is awesome.  I now really don't need a laptop.  My smartphone, with swype and voice recognition, is already pretty good.  However, sometimes you just want to type.  So I got a bluetooth keyboard.  It's not small, and not very light, but who cares?  It's so much better than any of those other methods.  If you screw up, you use backspace.  I know, I know, many of you are so good at swyping and speaking robotically that yours never screws up, right?  Well, I'm not.  So if I'm writing more than just a twitter update, I like the comfort of a keyboard.  I find that big words stump both swype and google voice recognition on my droid, or create an autocorrect fail.  While sometimes funny, I don't want to send an email that has grammatical issues to my boss, for instance.  The other day, I wrote a 2 page email on my  droid on the way to work.  The keyboard was clutch.  For that alone, it's worth the $40 I spent on google offers.  Don't get me wrong; at my age (31, for those of you who are wondering) I sometimes like a larger screen than my droid.  But for mobile things, I'd rather not have to buy a verizon service for sharing my droid's 4g connection, or setup my laptop.  It's easier to just do it on the droid.  Plus, it's faster than most of the laptops at my house.  

Anybody out there have experience in folding keyboards or smaller form factor ones that are more portable?  I like mine because it's basically setup like a a macbook keyboard, and it has an attached mouse that slides out.  I could see how some folks might like a smaller/lighter one though.

Have a good one,

~Mark

SMF 9/29/12 Paperless

Good Morning everybody,

For years people at my workplace have been talking about going paperless.  But we never can, because some people don't have computers at home or won't go onto the site to see things.  For those Luddites, we always have to continue to print things and waste paper.  The most annoying thing about this is that most of the paper ends up in a landfill instead of being recycled.

Why does this matter to those of us trying to be smartphone frugal, you ask?  It might not, but I've been subtly saving paper lately.  For instance, I had a LivingSocial Deal yesterday that worked out perfectly. I never had to print anything, I just showed my number to the waitress at the restaurant and used the coupon.  Now, because I am so frugal, I probably would have printed the coupon at work anyway, at no cost to me, but even so . . . my workplace would have been paying a couple cents to print that, whereas I paid absolutely nothing to keep it digital.  Even more importantly, I reduced my footprint a bit.  If each of us just did a few things like this, using google drive perhaps to share documents instead of printing them to have them to refer to or edit, or blogging instead of using valuable resources to print magazines, or shopping online instead of via catalog . . . I bet we can save a bunch of money, and a bunch of trees.  What do you say?

Have a good one,

~Mark

SMF 92412, unlimited data plans

As I mentioned previously, many cell phone companies are getting sheisty about unlimited data.  That's because soon, all we'll need is a good data plan.  Voice and Text are going to be the wave of the past.  Right now, I can make a call to anyone with a google account for free, with video, for $0 because I have unlimited data.  The more people have google, the more cheaply I can do this, because I won't use any minutes or any text messages if I just use VOIP instead.  I'll channel the information through the internet instead of over a phone.  I can do the same thing at home over my charter account using my laptop, which is why I feel my landline is a little passe.  I still keep it, since it's nearly free (<$10/month), but that's for another post.  For now though, don't upgrade your phone if it means losing your unlimited data plan.  The savings you'll be afforded, even if you have to buy a replacement phone outright, will more than pay for the upgrade cost.  Imagine, if you will, the following scenario:
a) The first month, your voice and text rate is just fine (they're unlimited now) but you go over on data to the tune of $30.
b) the same thing happens for the next 2 years.

You're now at $720, much more than you'd have paid for a phone if you bargain shop and buy it without a contract.  You're also free to get rid of your phone company if they start doing something stupid like throttling your data that you've paid for.  For instance, Verizon advised my wife to upgrade to a 4g phone instead of her iphone and that it would be much faster (this was before the iphone 5 came out).  She likes her droid, but they still throttle her data.  In places with high usage, like her office in Bloomfield, she still doesn't get full 4g service despite full bars and a 4g icon.  Verizon is mad because we use the plan as much as we want to, to stream music etc.  Once you get over a certain usage (I think it's 2.5 gigs of data) in a month, they begin to choke your internet speed to a near-standstill, until you are lucky if you can download a text message.  They are hoping that you'll relent and use the service (again, the service you paid for which is unlimited) less, so that your speeds will be greater.  This, of course, is silly.  They should instead increase their bandwidth to account for the number of users and their usage.  I'm sure my view on this is a bit myopic, but I like to think that if I ran a business that big and profitable, I'd still be nice to my consumers, and that doing that would ultimately make me more successful.

http://www.hot-deals.org/deal/8da5d626566bfc4fe4b8a826ac26cc8d/

SMF 9/25/12 The advantage of solar

Hi interwebs.

I want one.
http://www.amazon.com/External-Universal-Charging-Smartphones-E-readers/dp/B004GVIZC4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348587706&sr=8-1&keywords=droid+solar+charger

I have solar panels on my house, but I really want a solar powered extra backup battery.  Even my Droid Razr Maxx isn't quite enough power for me, if I use it a lot or for a long time.  I absolutely DESPISE having to remain close to a wall outlet or a laptop or some other charging device in order to keep my phone going.  I'm a hippie at heart, preferring to be out in the woods somewhere.  I haven't done an overnight backpacking trip, but I want to.  For safety's sake, I'd like to have a phone to call it in if I'm in a tree because there's a bear at the base.  However, my phone doesn't do me much good if it's DOA.  So, while I'm up in the tree canopy, I can climb high enough to place my solar charger's panel in a ray of sunlight, and then patiently charge it while speaking in soothing tones to Mr. Bear.

So, if any of you out there want a full fledged review of the product, you can always donate to my cause.  In the meantime, I'll email the product's makers and see if they want me to review it.

Have a good one,

~Mark

for more, see http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/solar-restore-battery-revives-your-phone-when-away-home.html

9/23/12 SMF Weather apps

Hi everybody,

I've discovered a new app that I like a lot.  It's called The Weather App, and it creates a widget in the top left of your droid menu so that it can keep an updated temperature up there.  Then, if you click on it,  you get a pretty detailed forecast, with nice icons, humidity, visibility, pressure, and cloud cover.  It also gets you severe weather alerts, which is nice if there's a twister or a hurricane headed your way and you need to take cover, but you're not watching TV or listening to the radio.  It's nice to know you still get contacted.  It has some ads, but far less than most weather apps, even ones on full computers.  Best of all, you can press your cheap button because it's free.  Enjoy, and please comment if you've found a better one.

~Mark

PowerSchools/gradebook

Good morning all,

I have a problem.  Droid DOES is the rallying cry, but why does Powerschools/Powerteacher work better on iphones and ipads?  There has to be somebody out there who teaches and likes droids better, right?  I'm a teacher, and it would be nice for me to be able to grade students on the fly with my droid.  Any advice/suggestions?  I'm not getting the iphone 5.  Everything else so far has been better on my android, so  . . . . what say you, internet?

~Mark

SMF 9/16/12 The Tally

Morning everybody,

I've decided, since I'm a math guy, to tally my savings so far based on my smartphone against the monthly cost of having this device.  I'll just take the last month or so, since, let's be honest here, my memory doesn't clearly depict events farther back in history than that.

Cost: $80/month for the phone plan, +250 for the phone.

Savings:
Gas - 20 cents a gallon times 100 gallons = $20
Groupons and Livingsocial deals: $20 at Adams Mill, $22 at Hooker Brewery, $40 at Kershaw through Groupon Goods.
Streaming music: subscription to one of these would cost at least $20 a month (notwithstanding that I'd be too cheap to do this)
Craigslist: $300 trailer, $400 tractor, $200 recumbent bicycle, $200 misc. exercise equipment.
GPS: Could have paid another $200 for this.

I think I'm doing pretty well, at -$1422 vs. $330, for a net profit of $1092 this month.

Even if I overestimated a bit, I feel like I made at least $1000 this month in profits.  I'm sure I would have Craigslisted anyway on a computer, but the fact that I can do it while on the road is priceless (Caveat, don't drive distracted - I only do it at lights).  If I happen to be far away from home and see a CL item for free that's close, I can get it while I'm out, saving more gas.

Not all months will be this good, but I won't have to buy a new phone each month either :)

~Mark

To SSD or not to SSD?

Hi everybody,

I recently put an SSD in my laptop.  It helped.  A LOT.  It now boots in a minute or less, and comes back from sleeping in 10 seconds flat.  Now, I'm using Ubuntu instead of windows, so I don't know how it will work for that.  I heard today that it's kind of bad for longevity (only a certain number of writes before the flash memory is kaput?)  Anybody know about this?  If you know anything, let me know.  I want to plan on having a contingency for when mine dies :(

~Mark

SMF 9/10/12 Bumping $ at Dunkin?

Hi again,

Yesterday I was at Dunkin.  Now, I try to be cheap and stay away from coffee I don't make, but sometimes I go.  I noticed a stanchion that said you could pay with your smartphone . . . I can only assume that this must be google wallet?  I like the idea, I'm just skeptical of the security.  Has anyone tried this?  It must work by linking up a credit card with your google account (which I've already done) and then using that to send payment.  I'm not concerned with the security of google's side, I'm concerned with the security of whatever wifi or Verizon network my phone's sending data through.  If Joe Schmoe is running the wifi network my phone added itself to automatically, couldn't he keep a record of the transaction and hack my bank account?  Someone better at network security than I am should tackle this one.  Do any of you out there know?  Is this the wave of the future, or the wave of future credit card fraud . . . I'm not sure my cheap button will allow me to be the first out there with a card linked to a big limit AND my droid.  At least not without some assurances.  Again, the idea sounds great - my wallet can contain just my ID, a bit of cash, and a smartphone which has all my credit card info.  However, losing a smartphone would now mean losing my wallet as well, which would suck.  Also, to reference the bike spoke incident, I'd be left penniless and bleeding, whereas if I carried a card I'd still at least have access to my money.

Lots of pluses and minuses here, but I've got to go get ready for my day job.  Have a good one all,

~Mark

SMF 9/9/12 Facetime and Google Hangout/chat

Hi everybody,

It's here.  Phones now have service that is fast enough to stream a videoconference call.  If you have a new iphone, you can use facetime with other people who have new iphones.  If you have an android, you can "hangout" with anyone with a computer and a webcam/mic setup, as well as anyone with an android.  Now, I can't claim to have fully investigated the apple products, especially since my wife now has a droid razr, but I did see it in action and it seemed to work.  I'm excited about the hangouts mostly for the possibilities.  I'm not sure how secure they are, but I bet it will be a nice solution for friends who haven't gotten together in a while to chat face to face (almost).  The group conversation is also easier when you can read facial cues to figure out who's about to speak.  I'd like to set up a test of the system with a couple other droid users and make sure it works when it's more than just me and another person. This also has the ability to TOTALLY alter the face (lol) of communications, because I'll be paying for very few minutes.  Most of the people I talk to have a computer or a droid, so I can call them with a hangout whenever I want, instead of having to use my verizon minutes.  And since, for the moment, I have unlimited data, I'm going to be pressing my cheap button and doing THAT a lot.

Also, a question: do any of you know anything about the bluetooth watches that synch with droids?  I know some of them can check time, email, texts, facebook updates, etc.  I was thinking it might be a sneaky way to check stuff during the day while NOT pulling out my phone in front of my class, but I'm not sure it's worth the $150 for a gizmo that might not last very long.

What do you all think?

~Mark

SMF 9/8/12 Severe Weather alert

Hi Everybody,

There was a severe weather warning today - so severe that my smartphone actually told me to take cover!  I was listening to google music, and then it just stopped - and the alert tone came on to tell me that I was in a tornado warning area.  How cool is that?  I mean, you expect local radio stations to help out with things like that, but severe weather alerts sent to your phone during a tornado watch?  Very cool.  Luckily, I didn't need the alert, but it was nice to know that it would come to me no matter what I was listening to.

Does anyone out there know how this technology works?  Does it get in touch with us based upon the tower we're currently connected to, the place we have the phone registered to, or what?  Would I have gotten the warning if I was in the next state because my home address was registered?  Was it Verizon, or some weather app I have installed?

Anyhow, whoever it was, I was glad it happened.  Though it meant that I didn't get to go out to dinner, it also meant I was safe.  We can add life saving info provider to the long list of what our smartphones can do for us.

~Mark
  

SPF 9/6/12 my wifi dongle's broken!

Good morning all,

My new phone has a broken wifi dongle (I think it's really called a radio, but saying dongle is more fun).  Every time I connect to a network, it flashes between connected and saved, never actually connecting or saving.  My 3g just isn't cutting it, so what's a tech-weenie to do?  I mean, it's only a couple months old at this point, and it's the Droid Razr Maxx.  I did all the normal tech support things, turning wifi on and off, rebooting the phone, deleting the network and asking it to find it again fresh.  None of these tactics have worked yet.  Does anybody  have any suggestions?

Thanks,

~Mark

SMF 9/5/12

SMF 9/5/12 - Check deposits wherever, whenever.

So, I'm a Bank of America Customer.  It's convenient, and generally they're on the cutting edge of all things technological.  I discovered the other day that I can TAKE A PICTURE OF A CHECK AND IT WILL BE AUTOMAGICALLY DEPOSITED.  Did everybody get that?  You don't have to fill out any forms, go to a branch, or even get out of your recliner.  How cool is that?!?  This may save a couple bucks in gas, but more importantly, it saves your time.  Yesterday, I had a check written out to me, and before I left I had deposited it.  Right there.  If it's not a huge money saving tip, it's at least worth a shout out - because it will save you time, and as they say, time is money.

I think there's also a feature where you can "bump" people money with ING.  It seems that if someone has a phone that has the app too, you could send money via bluetooth or something by having the phones in proximity.  This is cool, but it scares me a little.  What if I forget to turn off my bumping and everyone I pass can just grab a couple bucks?  My cheap button hurts.  I'm sure they've got fail safes for this type of thing, but I'm just a bit tight fisted, as I'm sure you've realized by now.  Anyhow, talk to you soon.

~Mark

SMF 9/4/12 Ubuntu vs. Windows, which leads to droid vs. iphone

Hi everybody,

Apologies in advance: This isn't (mostly) about phones.  But it's still about cheap, so I guess it's ok.   I'm a bit of a dweeb.  And a bit of a cheapskate.  Which means when somebody says, "it's free and open-source" I generally jump on it.  Hence, as I learn more about ubuntu and debian, I start putting it on all of my machines.  Here are the benefits:

a) Free.
b) Open-Source - meaning I can look at the code and change/modify things if I want to spend the time.
c) More free software than you could use in several lifetimes.
d) It works, with a little tweaking, nearly as well as mac OS (which by the way is linux based)
e) No virus protection needed

The detriments are as follows:

i) It's a little harder to get used to
ii) The software doesn't always work, since it's designed by whoever wants to do it.
iii) tech support generally means you have to use google and your wits.
iv) Not all hardware is supported, meaning your printer might not work right away.

Given all this, I still put ubuntu on all of my machines.  Sometimes I dual boot with windows or virtualbox into a windows install.

This does segue quite nicely into the apple vs. android debate.  The basic difference between apple products and android products is that ANYONE can write a program for android.  No quality checking, no worries.  For apple, development is a bit more restricted and they check the quality of a program before they'll roll it out.  This is not so much good or bad as a ideological difference.  Apple wants to protect people from themselves (don't break your phone with this crappy software) whereas droid and google are basically saying the opposite: try whatever you want, we trust you, and if you break it, just come grab a new one or restore it to factory settings.  This difference in ideology leads to a difference in cost and reliability.  Apple products generally cost more, but last way longer, because they don't get tampered with or upgraded much.  They're great for tech-newbies or people who just want a very reliable phone which can browse the web and text.  Androids in general have a slightly shorter life expectancy, but they're a whole lot more useful while they're alive.  In the animal kingdom, this might be like comparing a tortoise to a tuna.  Tortoises live forever, not changing much, but they're nigh unto indestructible.  Tuna live a much more active life, moving and shaking, and then they might end up on a sushi menu (to extend the analogy, the sushi menu = best buy's wall of shame).  I'm sorry if you're a biologist and this analogy offended you, I'm just trying to make a point here.  Please correct my errors and take it with a pinch of wasabi.

SMF 9/3/12 Keep your files with you and backed up.

Hi everybody,

http://www.hot-deals.org/deal/398d9d8eb56405a3aa2d2c4321cdbbca/

There are 25 gigs of online, backed up storage with your name on them.  Go get 'em.  Because when your stuff is on the cloud, anything with a web browser can access them.  That's right.  Your tablet, your laptop, your desktop, your droid, even your iphone and kindle fire I think.  More importantly, you won't be one of those people paying hundreds of dollars to tech support the next time your computer fails, or smartphone gets hit by a bus or bent between the spokes of your bicycle (see previous articles for THAT story).

When I worked at the Bates helpdesk, the toughest calls were the people who had their thesis all saved on one floppy disk.  The only copy.  Now, back then, dinosaurs roamed the earth, but they did have flash drives and CDs.  They also had email, so the people could have emailed themselves.  But instead, they would prowl around the helpdesk just before we opened, and then give us long sob stories about how they couldn't possibly put in that much time again, so could we please do anything we could to fix their problem.  Well, we did.  And sometimes we were able to fix the issues.

Long story short, don't use floppy disks.  Ever.  They're not floppy anymore so that's no fun, and they break a lot.  Don't use only flash drives or hard drives either, because they fail too.  Use the free 25 gigs of storage that's up there today, or google drive, or microsoft's version of it.  You don't have to put all your files up there, but at least the ones that you will really miss like your photos and your SENIOR THESIS.

One last time, here's the deal: for online, backed up cloud storage to fail, redundant servers in several places would all have to die at once.  If CA fell into the sea, iron mountain was nuked, and the zombie-pocalypse got the rest of us, maybe the data would be gone.  But by then, all any of us would be thinking about was BRAINS!, so your thesis on the calculus of the pygmy aboriginals would probably not be read anyway :)

~Mark

SMF 9/2/12: Saving money by checking in.

Hi all (and by all I mean all 2 of you that read this:))

I recently saved half of my money in a store by checking in on Foursquare.  It was only a $5 off $10 coupon, but all I had to do was check in to get it.  So, in addition to letting others know where you are when you feel like it, you can also save money by using coupons that foursquare gives you.  I'm not sure I've paid for the extra cost of my smartphone yet, or the monthly data plan, but between Mastercard and Foursquare, at least $5 were saved this month.  I'm going to keep doing this, using craigslist and groupon and livingsocial until I eventually make my money back.  At least that's the hope.  If not, I'll just keep deluding myself into believing that so that I can feel good about spending money on having the internet in my pocket.